Leslie Charteris - The Saint In Action

"Was that Z?" Welmont asked.

"It was Gandhi," answered Raddon curtly. "If you're ready we'll go. There's nothing more for tonight. Too dangerous to move until we know more about Templar."

They departed — none too soon for Tyler, who was jumpy and worried — leaving one of the big double doors slightly ajar.

Simon Templar stroked the cog of his lighter and inhaled deeply and luxuriously from a much-needed cigarette. He heard the three men walking over the cobbles outside; and then silence. With the lithe ease of a panther he lowered himself from the overhead beam on which he had been lying at full length, dropped to the roof of the taxi and thence descended to the ground.

There was a smile on his lips as he dusted himself down. That beam, so easily reached from the roof of the taxi, had positively asked him to make its acquaintance when he had first glanced up at it. Patricia, he knew, could handle her end of the job with smooth efficiency; he had had a couple of minutes earnest talk with her before they parted. For Simon Templar, even before he left the cellar, had put in some of that characteristic quick thinking which was the everlasting despair of the law and the ungodly alike. His restless brain, working at supercharged pressure, had looked into the immediate future with a clarity that was little short of clairvoyant; he had formulated a plan of action out of a situation that had not even acquired a definite geography. But that power of thinking ahead into the most remote possibilities was the gift which had so often left his enemies breathless in the background, hopelessly outpaced by the hurricane speed of the Saint's imagination…

Which satisfactorily explains why he was still in Mr Tyler's garage, dusting the well-creased knees of his impeccable Anderson & Sheppard trousers and by no means dissatisfied with the results of his roosting. He grinned helplessly as he realised how easily the departed trio could have seen him if they had only looked up into the dusty rafters. Not that it would have mattered much: he was armed, and they weren't. However, it was just as well that he had remained undiscovered. His ears hadn't told him much more than he knew already; but his eyes had served him well.

Raddon's phone call to Scotland Yard had given him nothing to worry about. If he knew anything of Patricia she would be through with Beatrice Avery long before the padded shoulders of the law could darken the portals of Parkside Court.

His eyes had served him on the second phone call. Lying along the overhead beam, he had looked straight down upon the telephone… He chuckled as he thought of Raddon's precautions. Raddon would never have used the instrument at all for his second call if it had been one of the old-fashioned non-dialling type. He couldn't have given his number to the exchange without giving it to Welmont and Tyler at the same time. Dialling was different: he had only to obtrude his body between his companions and the telephone, and they couldn't possibly know what number he had called.

But the Saint, with a perfect bird's-eye view, had watched every movement of Raddon's fingers on the dial; his supersensitive ears had listened to every click of the returning disc; he had memorized the number and tucked it securely away in a corner of his retentive brain. Raddon's finger had first jabbed into the PRS hole, then into the ABC, then into the PRS again. This could only mean one exchange — PAR, otherwise PARliament. The numbers were easy, Raddon had called PARliament 5577.

The Z-Man's telephone number! Or, at least, a number he was in the practice of using.

There were ways and means of discovering to whom that number had been allocated. Searching through the London Telephone Directory was one of them, but the Saint had never been able to rave about that particularly tedious occupation. There were easier methods. One of them he tried at once. He dialled PARIiament 5577 himself and blew smoke rings at the mouthpiece while he waited. His connection came quickly, and a thick voice said:

"Vell?"

"The same to you, comrade," said the Saint fraternally. "Kindly put me through to Mr Thistlethwaite—"

"Vot? Der iss nobody named that," said the thick voice.

"You'll pardon me, but there's a very large somebody named that," said the Saint firmly. "Senior partner of the firm of Thistlethwaite and Abernethy—"

"This iss not the firm you say."

"No? Then who is it?" asked the Saint obstinately. "What's the idea of using Thistlethwaite and Abernethy's telephone number? Aren't you Parliament 5577?"

"Yes."

"Then don't be silly. You're Thistlethwaite. Or are you Abernethy?"

"Ve are not dose names," shouted the thick voice.

The line became dead, but Simon Templar was not discouraged. He had not expected to click at the first attempt. He dialled the number a second time and waited.

"Vell?"

"Oh, it's you again, is it?" said the Saint cheerfully. "Vell — I mean, well, that proves that you must be Thistlethwaite. Or else you're Abernethy. I damn well know I dialled the right number."

"Ve are not Thistle-vot-you-say und somebody," roared the thick voice, its owner clearly under the impression that he was dealing with a genial half-wit. "You got the wrong number again, you fool!"

"If you're Parliament 5577 you're Thistlethwaite and Abernethy," insisted the Saint. "Think I don't know?"

"Ve are Zeidelmann und Co.," bellowed the angry voice, "und ve know nothing of the peoples you say."

"Well I'm damned!" said Simon in surprise. "Then am I the bloke who's been making the mistake? A thousand apologies, dear old frankfurter. And the same to Co."

He hung up, and with his cigarette slanting dangerously out of the corner of his mouth he turned over the last few pages of Vol. II of the London Telephone Directory, which lay on a shelf. There was only one Zeidelmann & Co.; and the address was Bryerby House, Victoria.

The Saint paused for a moment to remove the potato from the taxicab's exhaust pipe, and as he strode silently down a long narrow yard with high walls on either side he reflected on the absurdity of a mere humble potato rendering impotent one of man's greatest mechanical wonders. And at the same time he reflected on his own remarkable good fortune. Beyond any shadow of doubt, his guardian angel was having a busy day…

He was somewhere in the Cricklewood district, and he found his great cream-and-red Hirondel parked where he had left it. His opportune arrival in the garage cellar a little earlier had been no coincidence. He had allowed Patricia Holm to go to Parkside Court alone, but he had hovered cautiously in the offing himself, and it had been a simple matter to follow the taxi which had started off with such suspicious abruptness.

"The Z-Man — Zeidelmann & Co.," he said to himself as he drove swiftly towards Victoria. "Significant — and yet rather too easy. There's a catch in it somewhere."

Bryerby House stood in a quiet road off Victoria Street. Simon parked his car near by and walked to the office building. He had formulated no plan of action, but doubtless something would occur to him when it was necessary. Direct action, the straightforward and devastatingly simple approach which had always appealed to him, continued to offer tempting possibilities. It looked as if Zeidelmann & Co. had something to do with the Z-Man. Therefore he wanted to feast his eyes on Zeidelmann & Co. The logic of the proposition seemed incontrovertible; and as for its consequences, Simon was cheerfully prepared to let the Lord provide.

There was a wicked glimmer of anticipation in his eyes as he inspected the grubby board in the hall on which was painted a list of the occupants and their various callings. Zeidelmann & Co. apparently did nothing for a living, for beyond stating that their office was situated on the ground floor the board was completely dumb. The Saint wandered down a shabby bare-boarded passage, scanning the names on the doors as he passed them. He met nobody, for Bryerby House was one of those janitor-less office buildings in which one could wander unhindered and unchallenged at any hour of the day; and although the evening was quite young it was still old enough for most businessmen to have paddled off to the discomfort of their suburban homes. The passage took a turn at the end, and Simon Templar found himself facing a glass-topped door. There was a light within, and painted on the glass were the illuminating words: